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      Adrienne Adams, 1st Black NYC Council Speaker, Says City Is at a Crossroads

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      Ms. Adams, who became speaker on Wednesday, will lead the most diverse City Council ever as New York tries to recover from the pandemic. She already faces battles with the mayor.Adrienne Adams had to overcome several obstacles on her way to being voted in on Wednesday as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of the New York City Council, the second-most-powerful position in city government.She had a competitive race to retain her City Council seat representing southeast Queens, including a primary challenge from her predecessor, and entered the contest for speaker relatively late. Mayor Eric Adams did what he had said he would not do and tried, unsuccessfully, to tip the scales in favor of one of Ms. Adams’s rivals.Ms. Adams, 61, a moderate Democrat, prevailed and will now lead the City Council, as New York grapples once again with being a center of the coronavirus pandemic while facing a difficult financial future.The new City Council, which is more diverse than ever and has its first-ever female majority, also looks to be more ideologically divided than in recent memory. And in spite of public efforts to show they are on the same page, Ms. Adams already faces potential battles with the mayor on everything from the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails to new legislation that would grant more than 800,000 legal residents who are not citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.Ms. Adams, who lost her father to Covid, said her priority would be seeing the city through the pandemic and working to strengthen families that have been damaged in its wake.“We meet here today as the most diverse Council in history, led by the first African-American speaker,” Ms. Adams said in a speech Wednesday after her colleagues voted nearly unanimously to make her speaker. “While this is a moment to celebrate this milestone, we must realize that we are here because New York is at the crossroads of multiple crises — each one competing for our full attention.”Ms. Adams, the first Black person to serve as speaker, will lead a historically diverse City Council.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesIn an interview, Ms. Adams noted that the pandemic had further exposed existing inequalities on issues ranging from medical care to child care, housing and access to high speed internet. “All roads lead through this pandemic,” she said. “When I think of my priorities, I think of rebuilding a city.”Ms. Adams’s predecessor as speaker, Corey Johnson, said it would not be easy.“We’re in this painful and uncertain time with Omicron and not knowing what this will do to our economy,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview. “This new Council has more members who are very far left and more who are far right. To get things done will be a challenge.”He added: “But it’s not an impossible challenge because Adrienne has the skill set, track record and temperament.”Yvette Buckner, a political strategist who is vice chair of 21 in ’21, a group that helped elect a record number of women to the City Council, said Ms. Adams would “be able to understand the needs of the city from a different lens,” partly because of her experience as a mother of four and a grandmother of 10.Even as the country goes through “a long overdue reckoning of racial justice,” New Yorkers need to feel safe from discriminatory policing, “safe from the virus and safe from violence,” Ms. Adams said in her speech.Mr. Adams will be her counterpart in that effort. Though he suffered a significant political loss when Ms. Adams amassed enough support to become speaker, they both say they have a good relationship.Ms. Adams and Mr. Adams were classmates at Bayside High School in Queens in the late 1970s. Mr. Adams, discouraged by an undetected learning disability, has spoken often about not being a model student. Ms. Adams, on the other hand, was a cheerleader who founded a gospel chorus at the high school, which was mostly white at the time.“I actually went to class. We knew of each other but we did not hang out in the same crowd,” Ms. Adams said of her time at high school with the mayor. “But we are so proud of each other.”After graduating from Spelman College, Ms. Adams worked as a corporate trainer for communications companies. She served as chairwoman of Community Board 12 in Queens before running for office in 2017 after her predecessor was convicted of fraud and removed from office. (His conviction was later reversed.)As a councilwoman, she passed legislation to limit the sale of tax liens and established a task force to make sure the liens were implemented fairly, and she helped allocate $10 million in the budget to create a Black studies curriculum for public schools.Many in the city’s political class were surprised when Mr. Adams and his team tried to install Francisco Moya, a councilman from Queens, as speaker, particularly because Mr. Adams and Ms. Adams were largely seen as being politically in sync.Ms. Adams faces potential battles with Mayor Eric Adams on the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails and legislation that would grant noncitizen legal residents the right to vote in municipal elections. Anna Watts for The New York TimesMs. Adams, who was a co-chair of the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, opposed deeply cutting the Police Department budget as part of the defund the police movement. Mr. Adams is a former police captain who has criticized efforts to cut the police budget and who won the Democratic primary on a message of improving public safety.“How am I going to dislike someone that shares my same last name?” Mr. Adams said at a news conference on Tuesday. “I love Adrienne.”The mayor credited Ms. Adams, who endorsed him in the Democratic primary, with playing a “pivotal role” in helping him win.Ms. Adams also strongly agrees with Mr. Adams that the city, and its schools, should not shut down because of the highly contagious Omicron variant.But there are already two potential points of conflict. Mr. Adams has raised concerns about a bill passed during the previous City Council session that would give legal residents the right to vote in municipal elections, saying he believes that the 30-day residency requirement is too short. He has not ruled out vetoing the legislation.Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New AdministrationCard 1 of 7Schools Chancellor: David Banks. More

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      Why Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul Might Actually Get Along

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      Mayor Eric Adams has a base that Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to reach. And she controls the money he needs to jump-start his agenda. It will be a shift for New Yorkers used to seeing their governor and mayor at odds.The first public sign that things would be different between Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York City, and Gov. Kathy Hochul came on election night, when she appeared onstage to celebrate his victory.“We’re going to need her,” Mr. Adams said, as Ms. Hochul inched toward the microphone.They have since appeared together a handful of times, vowing to work as a team instead of fighting over every little thing, as their Democratic predecessors, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, had done for nearly eight years.“In the past, there has been this tension, a polite way of saying fighting, between the governor of New York and the mayor of the City of New York,” Ms. Hochul said at a recent holiday fund-raiser for the Democratic Party of Brooklyn, which Mr. Adams also attended. “The era of fighting between those two bodies, those two people, is over.”In theory, the governor and the mayor of the nation’s largest city should have each other’s interests at heart; one can rarely prosper without the other. Yet that has not always been the case in New York, where conflicting political parties and personalities have often caused rifts.Mr. de Blasio feuded constantly with Mr. Cuomo over matters great and small: how to pay for the city’s expansive prekindergarten initiative, subway funding, the response to the pandemic and the homeless crisis. They even fought over whether to euthanize a deer.Ms. Hochul and Mr. Adams, both Democrats, seem intent on trying again, and both have compelling reasons to do so.Mr. Adams takes office as the city faces a resurgence of the coronavirus and a raft of issues that may rely on the state’s assistance. Ms. Hochul needs support from Black, Latino and moderate voters in New York City, the same base that Mr. Adams cultivated to become mayor, as she faces a moderate opponent and two likely challengers to her left in a June primary.“Every mayor, no matter who they are, is eventually confronted with the fact that New York City is a creature of the state,” said State Senator Diane Savino, a moderate Democrat who represents Staten Island and who endorsed Mr. Adams. “New York City is a significant part of the Democratic Party vote, and I’m sure the governor would like to have his support.”Governor Hochul has pledged to have a better relationship with Eric Adams than her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, had with Bill de Blasio, left.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMs. Hochul and Mr. Adams and their staffs often speak ahead of major announcements on issues related to Covid policy. They have also been in touch about Ms. Hochul’s State of the State address this Wednesday and the policy proposals under development. And they’ve known one another for years and share more moderate views than some of their party’s left-leaning elected officials.They have both, for example, reached out to business leaders to seek their guidance on the city’s economic recovery from the pandemic.“Frankly, neither Governor Cuomo or Mayor de Blasio had a working relationship with leaders of the business community,” said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City. “This is a dramatic and most welcome reversal.”There is politicking happening behind the scenes between the two camps. With Ms. Hochul facing a contested primary, Mr. Adams is keenly aware of his political leverage: In November, Mr. Adams, who did not endorse anyone in the Democratic primaries for New York City comptroller and public advocate, said he planned to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary for governor.Among the items on Mr. Adams’s agenda are gaining long-term mayoral control of schools and a $1 billion expansion of the earned-income tax credit to help moderate and low-income families. Mr. Adams has a plan to provide universal child care and also wants federal funds to be released to the city more quickly.Ms. Hochul has also said she will work with the mayor on revisiting the state’s bail laws, with Mr. Adams suggesting that recent increases in crime are linked to changes in bail law that ended cash bail for many low-level offenses.“Hochul has great strength in a general election but needs to solidify her position in New York City to win a Democratic primary. That gives her an incentive to want to be helpful to the new mayor,” said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist. “The new mayor has tremendous incentive to do very well in that first budget because the perception will have an impact on the finances of the city. They have an enlightened self-interest to work well together.”But there is also risk associated with Ms. Hochul’s and Mr. Adams’s potential alliance. State Senator Michael Gianaris, a sponsor of some bail reform measures, said efforts to change the bail law would “set the stage for a less than amicable relationship right out of the box” with the State Legislature. Mr. Adams “also needs the Legislature,” Mr. Gianaris said.Mr. Adams would have had more leverage had Letitia James not dropped out of the race for governor. Ms. James, who decided to run for re-election as the state attorney general, was Ms. Hochul’s strongest opponent, according to early polling.Getting Mr. Adams’s backing would have helped Ms. Hochul with working-class, Black and Latino voters outside of Manhattan who might otherwise have supported Ms. James.Even with Ms. James out of the race, Mr. Adams still has some leverage. Jumaane Williams, the public advocate of New York City who is running to the left of Ms. Hochul, also has a strong political base in Brooklyn, as does Mr. de Blasio, who is considering running for governor. When Mr. Williams ran against Ms. Hochul in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor in 2018, he received almost 167,000 votes in Brooklyn, about 71,000 more than Ms. Hochul.“Tish James being out of the race takes some pressure off Hochul but doesn’t completely change the dynamic,” Mr. Gyory said. “If anything, Hochul now wants to get a larger share of the Black vote.”Jumaane Williams, the public advocate of New York City who is running for governor, has a strong base in Brooklyn, as does Mr. Adams.Anna Watts for The New York TimesMr. Williams and Mr. Adams have a cordial relationship, according to several sources familiar with both men. Though Mr. Adams, a former police officer, is considered more of a law-and-order candidate, and Mr. Williams is to the left on police reform, both are interested in holistic approaches to addressing gun violence.Mr. Williams and Mr. Adams spoke about setting up a meeting with progressives concerned about Mr. Adams’s stance on policing in the fall. In November, Mr. Williams asked Mr. Adams for his endorsement in the governor’s race.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More

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      A New Mayor and a New Relationship Between City Hall and Albany

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      Unlike their feuding predecessors, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul appear to be getting along. They have their reasons.Good morning. It’s Monday. We’ll look at Mayor Eric Adams’s first couple of days in office. We’ll also look at another first Monday in January, one that was a milestone for the Brooklyn Bridge.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMayor Eric Adams’s tenure is still so new it can be counted in low single digits (days) or medium double digits (hours). But the city’s problems did not take time off for the holidays. Hours after Adams took office, an off-duty police officer, sleeping in his car between shifts in Harlem, was hit by a bullet fired from a distance. Officials said it did not appear that the officer had been targeted. Nor was a suspect quickly identified. Adams went to the hospital where the officer was recovering and called gun violence “unacceptable.” (The officer was released from the hospital on Sunday.)Adams’s agenda would have been challenging without that incident or another that he witnessed in the early hours of his mayoralty — a fight on a Brooklyn street. The city’s economy was struggling to regain its footing even before the recent Omicron-driven surge raised concerns about staffing shortages beyond hospitals. “You may wait longer for a D train,” the subway system’s Twitter account cautioned on Saturday. “We’re running as much service as we can with the train crews we have available.”But with a different mayor, there is a different relationship between City Hall and Albany. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio feuded constantly. Adams has a base of Black, Latino and moderate voters that Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to tap into as she runs for election to a full term. And she controls money that Adams needs to jump-start his agenda, which includes a $1 billion expansion of the earned-income tax credit to help moderate and low-income families.As my colleague Jeffery C. Mays explains, the two camps are busy politicking. With Hochul facing a contested primary, Adams is well aware that he has leverage: In November, Adams, who did not endorse anyone for comptroller or public advocate in the Democratic primary for citywide offices, said he planned to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary for governor.[Why Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul ‘Need Each Other’]Hochul has said she will work with the mayor on revisiting the state’s bail laws, with Adams suggesting that recent increases in crime could be attributed to changes in the law that ended cash bail for many low-level offenses.But State Senator Michael Gianaris, a sponsor of some bail reform measures, said efforts to change the bail law would “set the stage for a less than amicable relationship” with the State Legislature “right out of the box.”For now, there are signs of coordination. Hochul and Adams have been in touch about her State of the State address, scheduled for Wednesday, and the policy proposals she has in mind. They have also reached out to business leaders, seeking guidance on the city’s economic recovery.“They are both sensible Democrats,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, recalling that when Hochul and Adams attended the 30th anniversary of his civil rights organization at Carnegie Hall in November, the staff did not have to worry that they would cross paths, in contrast to gatherings Cuomo and de Blasio had attended.“I don’t know if ‘like’ would be the right word,” Sharpton said, “but I think they both know they need each other.”WeatherOn a partly sunny day, expect a chance of light snow in the morning, along with wind gusts and temps in the low 30s. The evening will be mostly clear with temperatures dropping to the mid-20s.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Thursday (Three Kings’ Day).The top Metro newsMany people adapted during the pandemic in ways they say made them better and improved society. “I see time and time again that people are resilient,” said George Bonnano, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University. “The pandemic has shown this in spades.”In a shift in policy as Covid cases rise, Goldman Sachs told its U.S. employees, many of whom are based in Manhattan, to work from home for the first two weeks of the year.Look backOn another first Monday, a first for the Brooklyn BridgeWorkers standing on the New York tower of the Brooklyn Bridge during construction in 1872.Museum of the City of New York/Talfor/Holmes/Pach/Getty ImagesToday is the first workday of the year. Another first workday — Jan. 3, 1870, also a Monday — was the first day of construction on the Brooklyn Bridge.It did not get much attention. That milestone was the subject of exactly one paragraph in a newspaper — The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Whoever wrote that paragraph all but pleaded with the editors for more space. The opening line said the story “deserves more than a passing notice.”What began on Jan. 3 was work to clear the waterfront where a caisson — one of the giant wooden boxes on which the towers were built and still rest — would be maneuvered into position and sunk. The Eagle predicted that Brooklynites would be able to walk across the bridge by the nation’s centennial six years later. According to David McCullough’s “The Great Bridge,” E.F. Farrington, who held the title of master mechanic among the workers building the bridge, did indeed cross in 1876, but on Aug. 25, not July 4. A “temporary footbridge” opened in February 1877 — “a sort of hanging catwalk,” McCullough called it, adding: “One reporter described proceeding along, step by step, nearly frozen with terror.”The bridge did not open to the public for another six and a half years.What we’re readingIn the fall of 2020, many states, including New York and New Jersey, released incarcerated people early in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. We spent a year with three people as they navigated the transition from cell to home.Gothamist photographed the return of the Polar Bear Plunge in Coney Island.Predictions? ‘My heart sank.’Kam MakSo what about 2022? “I looked at the predictions, and my heart sank,” Joanna Lee told me.She and her husband Ken Smith have compiled the Pocket Chinese Almanac, in English, each year since 2010. For 2022, they chose an illustration by the Brooklyn-based artist Kam Mak, who was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design a series of stamps celebrating the Lunar New Year. They based the day-by-day forecasts in the little volume on the calculations of a geomancer, a Hong Kong architect named Warwick Wong. He carries on a tradition he learned from his grandfather, who, in turn, learned about divining trends from his ancestors.Will 2022 be another year when we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, to apply a famous line from the 1960s to the pandemic? Will the economic picture brighten in New York City, whose 9.4 percent unemployment rate is more than double the national percentage?Based on Wong’s interpretation of Feb. 4, the day known as “spring comes” on the lunar calendar, 2022 will be clouded by an aura of “murder in the air,” Lee said.“This is a year with lots of controversies and ‘petty people,’” Lee said, using what she said was a Confucian term for people who pursue personal advancement rather than the common good. “The body, as in ‘the world,’ will be weaker this year, compared with the previous year, hence more likely to succumb to those in power.”The pandemic “is going to be in and out, in and out, up and down, up and down,” Lee said. “We are not out of trouble, it seems.”Smith said that 2022, the Year of the Tiger, would be a year of transition. “We are leaving a 20-year period marked by speculation and volatility in fields like agriculture and real estate and entering a 20-year cycle where energy is poised to be the big thing,” he said. But it was not clear what the problems would be or where the dangers lurked, only that they would come faster. “The cycles that we’re used to over broad periods of time are going to be very tight and very quick,” he said.Metropolitan diaryHappy landingDear Diary:I was returning to New York from Los Angeles last April and was eager to get through J.F.K. and away from the crowds as quickly as possible.I hurried to the baggage claim and maneuvered my way carefully through the other travelers to get closer to the carousel. Knowing it would be a while before my bag emerged, I prepared myself mentally for the wait.When the carousel finally started up, out from the chute popped my blue carry-on, first and alone, sliding down to the edge.I was so surprised that as I ran up and grabbed it, I shouted, “This never happens!”Everyone around me burst into applause.— Connie NicholsIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, David Poller and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Eric Adams Takes Office as New York City's Mayor

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      Eric Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, faces difficult decisions over how to lead New York City through the next wave of the pandemic.Eric Leroy Adams was sworn in as the 110th mayor of New York City early Saturday in a festive but pared-down Times Square ceremony, a signal of the formidable task before him as he begins his term while coronavirus cases are surging anew.Mr. Adams, 61, the son of a house cleaner who was a New York City police captain before entering politics, has called himself “the future of the Democratic Party,” and pledged to address longstanding inequities as the city’s “first blue-collar mayor,” while simultaneously embracing the business community.Yet not since 2002, when Michael R. Bloomberg took office shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, has an incoming mayor confronted such daunting challenges in New York City. Even before the latest Omicron-fueled surge, the city’s economy was still struggling to recover, with the city’s 9.4 percent unemployment rate more than double the national average. Murders, shootings and some other categories of violent crimes rose early in the pandemic and have remained higher than before the virus began to spread.Mr. Adams ran for mayor on a public safety message, using his working-class and police background to convey empathy for the parts of New York still struggling with the effects of crime.But Mr. Adams’s first task as mayor will be to help New Yorkers navigate the Omicron variant and a troubling spike in cases. The city has recorded over 40,000 cases per day in recent days, and the number of hospitalizations is growing. The city’s testing system, once the envy of the nation, has struggled to meet demand and long lines form outside testing sites.Mr. Adams will keep on the current health commissioner, Dr. Dave Chokshi, until March to continue the city’s Covid response.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesConcerns over the virus caused Mr. Adams to cancel an inauguration ceremony indoors at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn — a tribute to the voters outside Manhattan who elected him. Instead, Mr. Adams chose the backdrop of the ball-drop crowd, which itself had been limited for distancing purposes to just a quarter of the usual size.Still, his swearing-in ceremony in Times Square, shortly after the ceremonial countdown, was jubilant, and Mr. Adams said he was hopeful about the city’s future.“Trust me, we’re ready for a major comeback because this is New York,” Mr. Adams said, standing among the revelers earlier in the night.Mr. Adams, the second Black mayor in the city’s history, was sworn in using a family Bible, held by his son, Jordan Coleman, and clasping a framed photograph of his mother, Dorothy, who died last spring.As Mr. Adams left the stage, he proclaimed, “New York is back.”Mayor Bill de Blasio also attended the Times Square celebration and danced with his wife onstage after leading the midnight countdown — his last official act as mayor after eight years in office.Mr. Adams, who grew up poor in Queens, represents a center-left brand of Democratic politics. He could offer a blend of the last two mayors — Mr. de Blasio, who was known to quote the socialist Karl Marx, and Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire and a former Republican like Mr. Adams.Mr. Adams narrowly won a competitive Democratic primary last summer when coronavirus cases were low and millions of New Yorkers were getting vaccinated. The city had started to rebound slowly after the virus devastated the economy and left more than 35,000 New Yorkers dead. Now that cases are spiking again, companies in Manhattan have abandoned return to office plans, and many Broadway shows and restaurants have closed.Mr. Adams captured the mayoralty by focusing on a public safety message, empathizing with working-class voters outside Manhattan.James Estrin/The New York TimesWith schools set to reopen on Monday, Mr. Adams must determine how to keep students and teachers safe while ensuring that schools remain open for in-person learning. Mr. Adams has insisted that the city cannot shut down again and must learn to live with the virus, and he has been supportive of Mr. de Blasio’s vaccine mandates.On Thursday, Mr. Adams announced that he would retain New York City’s vaccine requirement for private-sector employers. The mandate, which was implemented by Mayor de Blasio and is the first of its kind in the nation, went into effect on Monday.Even so, Mr. Adams made it clear that his focus is on compliance, not aggressive enforcement; it remains unclear whether he will require teachers, police officers and other city workers to receive a booster shot.Mr. Adams has also said that he wants to continue Mr. de Blasio’s focus on reducing inequality, even as he has sought to foster a better relationship with the city’s elites.“I genuinely don’t think he’s going to be in the box of being a conservative or a progressive,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “Adams is excited to keep people on their toes.”When Mr. de Blasio took office in 2014, he and his allies made it clear that his administration would offer a clean break from the Bloomberg era; he famously characterized New York as a “tale of two cities,” and vowed to narrow the inequity gap that he said had widened under Mr. Bloomberg.For the most part, Mr. Adams has signaled that his administration will not vary greatly from Mr. de Blasio’s. Several of his recent cabinet appointments worked in the de Blasio administration.Mr. Adams has signaled that his agenda will not differ greatly from that of his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThere will be some differences: Mr. Adams said he does not plan to end the city’s gifted and talented program, as Mr. de Blasio had intended. Mr. Adams has also vowed to bring back a plainclothes police unit that was disbanded last year, in an effort to get more guns off the street.Mr. Adams will take the helm of the city during a period of racial reckoning, after the pandemic exposed profound economic and health disparities. At the same time, calls for police reform and measures to address the city’s segregated public schools are growing. During the mayoral campaign, Mr. Adams faced significant questions from his opponents and the news media over matters of transparency, residency and his own financial dealings. Mr. Adams said he was unfazed by the criticism and was focused on “getting stuff done.”Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New AdministrationCard 1 of 7Schools Chancellor: David Banks. More

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      Adrienne Adams Will Become New York City Council's Next Speaker

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      In an early political setback for Eric Adams, Adrienne Adams emerged from a hard-fought race with the votes she needed to be council speaker.The race for New York City Council speaker, the second-most powerful government post in the nation’s largest city, ended Friday with Adrienne Adams, a member from Queens, securing the votes needed from her colleagues to win the job, and Mayor-elect Eric Adams’s blessing as well.Ms. Adams said that 32 fellow members of the incoming Council had agreed to choose her as the body’s next leader, well above the 26 she needed.The resolution of what was a complex campaign of insider jockeying came a few days after four of the candidates who had been vying for the job threw their support to Ms. Adams, who declared herself victorious, only to have her main challenger, Francisco Moya of Queens, assert that he had won the race.“I am honored to have earned the support and the trust of my colleagues to be their speaker,” Ms. Adams said in a statement on Friday. “Our coalition reflects the best of our city. We are ready to come together to solve the enormous challenges we face.”Mr. Moya conceded to his fellow Democrat on Friday, saying in a statement that “it is clear that I do not have a path to victory” and calling Ms. Adams a “dedicated and thoughtful leader” who he expected would work well with all Council members.Ms. Adams is now virtually assured of becoming the first Black woman to lead the City Council. As speaker, she will help set the city’s agenda and negotiate with Mr. Adams over a municipal budget that, at $100 billion, is larger than those of all but a few states. A formal vote installing her as speaker will be held in January after the incoming City Council is sworn in.Mr. Adams had publicly vowed to stay out of the race. But he and his allies had made it clear in private conversations meant to build support for Mr. Moya that they preferred him for the job. In backing Mr. Moya, Mr. Adams expended valuable political capital and risked putting himself at odds with key members of the coalition that helped elect him, making Ms. Adams’s victory a notable political setback for the incoming mayor.Mr. Adams was nonetheless quick to congratulate Ms. Adams, calling her “the best choice to lead our City Council forward” a day after he had spoken warmly about her while emphasizing that he believed that they could work together effectively.Ms. Adams’s victory declaration on Friday capped nearly two weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations and frantic calls that created tension among members of the city’s congressional delegation and early endorsers of Mr. Adams.The acrimony spilled into public view when The New York Post published an article featuring anonymous criticism of Representative Gregory Meeks, the Queens Democratic leader, for aligning with “anti-Israel socialists” to support Ms. Adams. Mr. Meeks, the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, is a longtime supporter of Israel and has had strong disagreements with democratic socialists in his party.Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New AdministrationCard 1 of 4Schools Chancellor: David Banks. More

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      Eric Adams Wades Into Fraught Speaker’s Race, Risking Political Capital

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      After saying he would stay out of the race, Eric Adams, the incoming mayor, has sought to install an ally. It was unclear whether he would succeed.When New York City’s mayor-elect, Eric Adams, said he was staying out of the combative race for City Council speaker, the declaration made sense: He still has the vast majority of his cabinet appointments to make, and an extraordinarily challenging job awaiting him in three weeks.And yet, skipping an important political contest — one that would decide whether the second-most powerful position in city government would be held by an ally of Mr. Adams — seemed like an almost novel notion in New York.And sure enough, in the past week or so Mr. Adams and his associates had spoken with council members on behalf of his preferred candidate, Francisco Moya of Queens, who was thought to have little pre-existing support among those who would have to choose him as their leader.The move, however, could end up backfiring.On Tuesday, four candidates for the leadership post agreed to quit the race and support a different contender, Adrienne Adams, a Queens councilwoman, bringing her closer to the 26 votes she needs to become speaker when the election takes place in January.“After much discussion and collaboration with my colleagues, I am honored to have received the necessary votes to become the next speaker of the New York City Council,” Ms. Adams said in a statement. “The incoming City Council will be beautifully diverse and wonderfully collaborative in so many ways.”But in an illustration of how complicated the jockeying has been, Mr. Moya also declared victory on Tuesday shortly after Ms. Adams’s announcement.“I am humbled to announce that our diverse coalition of council members and leaders from across New York City has collected a majority of votes to elect the next speaker of the Council,” he said on Twitter. “I look forward to leading this body into a brighter future for our great city.”Neither he nor Ms. Adams identified the council members they believe to be behind them.If Mr. Moya prevails, Mr. Adams would gain a trusted governing partner, helping to clear the way for him to execute his mayoral agenda.A victory by Ms. Adams, in contrast, would amount to a striking political defeat for a new mayor who had expended political capital to try to advance his choice, although Ms. Adams endorsed Mr. Adams in the Democratic primary and the two, who are not related, do not appear to have sharp ideological differences.Whatever the result, Mr. Adams has ended up at odds with key labor unions and council members at a vital moment in his transition, which has so far lagged behind that of his predecessor. The machinations threaten to create his first political headache as he seeks to fill out his administration.On Tuesday, Adrienne Adams of Queens gained the support of four council colleagues who had been vying to be speaker. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe four council members who decided to drop out of the speaker’s contest and endorse Ms. Adams — Diana Ayala of East Harlem and the Bronx; Keith Powers of the East Side; Gale Brewer of the Upper West Side; and Justin Brannan of southern Brooklyn — did so after meeting with her on Sunday, The Daily News reported.The incoming City Council will be the most diverse in history, with women and members who identify as people of color in the majority. Some of the speaker candidates felt that it was important for a person who represents that diversity to lead the Council.“I recognize the moment we are in — that for the first time we have a women of color majority council, and I am proud to support Adrienne Adams as speaker of the Council who represents the body and this historic moment,” Ms. Ayala, one of three women of color in the race for speaker, said in a statement on Tuesday. Carlina Rivera of Manhattan remains in the race.(Later in the day, Ms. Ayala said the race had come to resemble a “telenovela.”)Should Mr. Adams fail in his first major political play as incoming mayor, he may have to grapple with lingering bitterness on the part of the City Council and some labor leaders upset by his team’s efforts to override their will.In interviews over the past several days, some council members have expressed concern about the advisers who worked with Mr. Adams to support Mr. Moya in the first place. These members also questioned why Mr. Adams has appeared unwilling to back down in the face of substantial resistance from the Council and several influential labor unions, including 32BJ, which represents building service workers, and DC37, the city’s largest public employee union, that wanted a more collaborative process.The battle over who will be the next council speaker has consumed New York politics at every level in recent days. Labor leaders, county officials and other party leaders have all sought to square the preferences of the incoming mayor, who is at the height of his political power and enjoying reservoirs of good will, with an incoming class that includes independent-minded members. Some of them have deep reservations about Mr. Moya, although certainly he now has public endorsers as well.Mr. Moya is Latino and, at a moment when no citywide office is held by a Latino, a number of his supporters have cited his background in making the case for his candidacy.Mr. Moya’s foes have taken to using a “Star Wars” term to characterize their opposition, referring to themselves as the Rebel Alliance.Sarah Stier/Getty Images For QbfcThe race has even created divisions within Mr. Adams’s own coalition — so much so that some council members and others involved in the process who oppose Mr. Moya have referred to themselves as the Rebel Alliance, a “Star Wars” reference.“It is the most senselessly divisive speaker’s race I have ever seen,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx and a former council member, speaking broadly of the upheaval. “A wedge has been driven through the congressional delegation, the county organizations, the council and the labor movement.”But Staten Island Councilman Joseph Borelli, who leads the council’s five-member Republican caucus, said the maneuvering was not unusual.“People can’t remember four years ago and they can’t remember four years before that,” said Mr. Borelli, who has yet to publicly declare his allegiance in the race, but is believed to support Mr. Moya. “And there’s always this level of horse-trading and ebbing and flowing of momentum.”Representative Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat who is close to three members of the incoming council who are thought to be undecided, has been urging union officials, Mr. Adams and county party leaders to hold a meeting to sort out their differences.Tiffany Cabán, a newly elected Queens council member and a democratic socialist, said it was important that the next speaker be able to “democratize” the City Council and help members craft an agenda based on the needs of the communities they represent.“There are a few things that are incredibly important in the next speaker,” Ms. Cabán said. “First and foremost is that the mayor isn’t picking the speaker. The best way to move forward is with an independent body that provides checks and balances.”Despite multiple people describing Mr. Adams having direct conversations about the race with council members, he continues to maintain that he is taking a hands-off approach.“I stated it from the beginning, that I was not going to be heavy-handed in this race,” he said, during a TV interview on Tuesday morning. “People call me, they call me all the time, and they say, ‘Eric what are your thoughts?’ I give them an analysis of the people who are mentioned in the race, to give my input. I’m looking for a partner. The speaker does not work for me.” More

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      Mayor-Elect Eric Adams Cancels 10 Fund-Raisers

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      One of them was sponsored by a contentious public relations executive, Ronn Torossian.Mayor-elect Eric Adams of New York has canceled a series of fund-raisers scheduled for this month, beginning with a planned event on Monday night co-hosted by a colorful and divisive public relations executive whose proximity had drawn unwelcome attention.Mr. Adams, who will take office on Jan. 1, is scrambling to fill jobs in his administration and to manage his new status as the darling of certain powerful Manhattan circles that had more limited access to the outgoing mayor, Bill de Blasio.“We canceled 10 planned fund-raisers for December because the transition’s fund-raising effort in November was extremely successful, bringing in enough donations to pay for both the inauguration and staff to help prepare the mayor-elect’s administration to hit the ground running on Day 1,” Mr. Adams’s spokesman, Evan Thies, said in an email.The fund-raiser Monday night was to be co-hosted by Ronn Torossian, the chief executive of a public relations firm, 5WPR, whose high-profile presence at Mr. Adams’s side in recent months has rankled Mr. Adams’s staff, two people familiar with their relationship said. It was to be held at Zero Bond, the private club in NoHo where Mr. Adams has been known to fraternize into the night, particularly since winning the Democratic nomination in July.An array of New York interests had been seeking to curry good will with the incoming mayor by contributing to Mr. Adams’s committees. Among the canceled fund-raisers is one hosted by the New York Electrical Contractors Association and another by the Muslim community activist Debbie Almontaser, Mr. Thies said.But Mr. Adams has not canceled all of his events. He still plans to attend a Dec. 16 event hosted by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mr. Thies said, but it is no longer a fund-raiser. Mr. Bloomberg endorsed Mr. Adams in the general election and the mayor-elect has leaned on the former mayor for advice.A spokesman for Zero Bond says the club doesn’t comment on events hosted by its members.The canceled Zero Bond event casts a spotlight on Mr. Adams’s abrupt arrival as a Manhattan power broker after a career in Brooklyn across the river from Manhattan’s elite. Mr. Torossian is a new friend who has helped introduce Mr. Adams to figures in the real estate and entertainment businesses, and crucially brought him to the exclusive Zero Bond, which Mr. Adams used as an informal transition headquarters.While many politicians carefully manage their relationships to avoid potential favor-seekers, conflicts of interest or simple embarrassment, Mr. Adams has thrown himself headfirst into the new circles his election has opened, even flying to Puerto Rico on a jet owned by the cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce.But Mr. Torossian’s particularly controversial history, and his high profile at Mr. Adams’s side, has drawn a wave of coverage, including an unflattering Daily Beast story that revisited some of Mr. Torossian’s controversial clients, several of them allies of former President Donald Trump, as well as his “street-brawler” style and profane emails.“It’s great Eric has hit his fund-raising goals and is oversubscribed,” Mr. Torossian said in a text message on Saturday. “His pro-business, pro-police policies are what NYC needs.”None of the Adams aides who had sought to distance their boss from Mr. Torossian would speak for the record, perhaps because of his reputation as a tenacious enemy.Mr. Torossian purchased a website called Everything PR in 2014, the site’s former editor in chief, Paul Bulter, told The New York Times. A former 5WPR employee said Mr. Torossian operated the site, where he regularly promotes his firm’s work.For instance, under the headline “Pornhub Is Necessary Viewing for PR Professionals,” one story concludes: “Pornhub has brilliant PR. Their PR agency in the U.S. is 5WPR.”Mr. Torossian declined to comment on Everything PR.The site also attacks other PR firms with whom Mr. Torossian has clashed. After Ken Frydman, a New York public relations executive, won a contract that 5WPR had also sought, Mr. Frydman’s firm received a negative write-up on Everything PR, saying, “We cannot in good faith recommend this agency.”“I should sue Ronn for slander and defamation,” Mr. Frydman said. “But I don’t have time to stand on that long line.” More

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      A Candidate Drops Out, Turning the Race for Governor Upside Down

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      Letitia James’s surprise decision seemed to solidify the front-runner status of Gov. Kathy Hochul.It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at the surprise announcement from Letitia James, who said she was dropping out of the race for governor to run for another term as state attorney general. We’ll also take a look at a new bookstore in Chinatown.Anna Watts for The New York Times“I have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general.”It was the opening line of a message on Twitter that left out the most important part: Letitia James was dropping out of the race for governor. She said she would run for a second term as attorney general of New York.My colleagues Katie Glueck and Nicholas Fandos write that there is now no question that Gov. Kathy Hochul will enter 2022 as the most formidable candidate in the race.James had been treated as a top contender in the six weeks since she declared her candidacy, following her office’s blockbuster report on sexual harassment claims against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that prompted his resignation. James, a Democrat from Brooklyn, hoped to assemble a coalition of Black and Latino voters and become the first Black female governor in the nation.But recent polls had indicated that James was trailing Hochul, who replaced Cuomo, by double digits among Democratic primary voters. She was also thought to lag in fund-raising and in the competition for high-profile endorsements, while Hochul has been rolling out a steady stream. One state senator said colleagues in Albany had been reluctant to risk alienating Hochul by endorsing James.[Letitia James Drops Out of N.Y. Governor’s Race]James said in her Twitter message that she wanted to “finish the job” on several “important investigations and cases.” She did not go in details. But her announcement came on the same day that it became known that her office intended to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify next month in a civil fraud investigation. If James finds evidence of wrongdoing, she could file a lawsuit against Trump.Ronald Fischetti, a lawyer for Trump, said he would move to have the subpoena quashed. Trump’s lawyers could argue that compelling him to testify would violate the constitutional protection against self-incrimination because the testimony could be unfairly used against him in a criminal investigation being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr.Both James and Vance have tried to determine whether Trump listed pumped-up valuations on his properties to obtain financing. Because the two investigations overlap, Fischetti said Trump — who has repeatedly called the investigations politically motivated witch hunts — could refuse to give a deposition once James formally subpoenaed him.James is also litigating a closely watched case against the National Rifle Association, as well as lawsuits involving Facebook, Google, Amazon and the New York Police Department.As for withdrawing from the governor’s race, she made the decision on Wednesday and her campaign notified allies early on Thursday, according to people with direct knowledge of her conversations with advisers and supporters she called. One person who was contacted on Thursday said no explanation was given for the course change. Another said she emphasized her work in her current role.WeatherLook for a partly sunny start to the weekend, with temps in the high 40s. At night, it will be mostly cloudy. Expect a chance of showers in the wee hours of the morning and temps in the mid-40s.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve).The latest New York newsLaborWorkers at one Buffalo-area Starbucks have voted to form a union.Student workers on strike at Columbia University formed picket lines after an email from the university said that students who remained on strike were not guaranteed jobs next term.Other Big StoriesThe chancellor of the State University of New York, Jim Malatras, will resign. Pressure had been building for him to step down over text messages that showed he had belittled a woman who later accused Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment.New legislation will require hosts of short-term rentals to register with the city.Over a week since Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial on federal sex-trafficking charges began, she and her defense team are now presented with a choice: Will she take the stand?Allergan agreed to pay $200 million in a settlement reached just before closing arguments began in a monthslong opioid trial.Yu and Me, for one and allJames Estrin/The New York TimesMy colleague Ashley Wong got an advance look at a bookstore that is opening tomorrow at 44 Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It’s called Yu and Me, a play on the name of the owner, Lucy Yu, who is 27 and committed to selling a diverse range of authors historically underrepresented in book publishing.Yu will join only a handful of female Asian American booksellers in the city and will probably be the first to operate in Manhattan’s Chinatown, according to Vic Lee, co-founder of Welcome to Chinatown, a group created during the pandemic to promote businesses there.Yu, who grew up in Southern California, was trained as a chemical engineer and has never been in the book business. But she said she had spent her life seeking out literature that made her feel seen — books by and about immigrants, exploring complicated mother-daughter relationships. Stocking her shelves with such works is a tribute to her own mother, who is from China and used to take her to Chinatown in Los Angeles on weekends, where they found a common language over errands, art classes and snacks like you tiao and soy milk.“I never saw representation for myself in the books I read growing up,” she said. “Seeing the need for diverse representation and stories outside of our own, it really pushed me to continue on this path.” She said she would also offer books from authors across the Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, a personal quest that intensified after watching anti-Asian hate crimes rise over the past year.Her arrival is being welcomed as Chinatown tries to rebound from the pandemic. She is “coming into a market that is highly in need,” said Wellington Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership, which works on community projects with the Chinatown Business Improvement District.He said that foot traffic in Chinatown was lagging, at least on weekdays, because potential customers have not returned to offices in Lower Manhattan. He said bookstores drew shoppers who linger and who he hopes will check out other businesses in the area. Yu said she decided to open a bookstore after one of her closest friends, James MacDonald, died last year in an accident. She and MacDonald had been in a book club together, she said, and his death prompted her to re-evaluate what she really wanted to do with her life. A section of the store is dedicated to him, filled with books he loved.For the first month, Yu plans to juggle bookselling with her full-time job as a chemical engineer. The store will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, sandwiched between hours spent at her chemical engineering job. Starting next year, she’ll also serve espresso, wine, locally brewed beer and pastries from Fay Da Bakery on Mott Street.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More